Motherhood Meets Mastectomies

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Votes for Women

My three year old is obsessed with Mary Poppins. She watches it all the time. So it wasn’t surprising that she marched around the house yesterday randomly yelling out, “Votes for Women!” Appropriately timed for someone who has no idea what voting is (let alone the name of our president which I tried to teach her today). I am not politically minded. I hated history, social studies and government classes as a student. Why on Earth are kids required to memorize the date Colonel Custer died? Was it in the closet with a candlestick? I’m getting confused again. Government was actually a useful class as I do think it’s important to have a basic knowledge of how the system works. If only so we can bitch and moan about how fucked up it is. In all seriousness, I rocked the vote today. With my two girls in tow, we walked to our voting location and we all got our stickers for casting my ballot. I crammed twenty minutes before to make sure I knew at least a little about all of the candidates. One town rep got my vote because her husband very sweetly asked me to vote for his wife before I went inside. Another guy who talked to me at the local BBQ competition this summer got my vote because he was friendly, kind and served in the Navy. My favorite Facebook status update today was a friend saying a candidate outside of the polls told her to vote for him because he promised “to never hate [her] uterus”. I missed that ad on tv but he would’ve had my vote too. I try to vote for the candidate instead of the party and I’m proud to say that my ballot was truly bipartisan. I don’t often participate in political conversations because I don’t think I’m politically educated enough to comment. And because when people start talking politics, I start falling asleep. One thing is not lost on me though. I vote to protect my freedoms. I vote to ensure that I can continue to act on my own behalf and have the power to do with my body what I want or need to do. How fortunate we are to live in a country where women’s health issues are as important to our representatives as they are to us. The candidates may not sugar coat their points of view, but those who care will prove it. After all, just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.